Some Nights
by Kayndred
Summary: One day, maybe even some day soon although that isn't really likely, all things considered , Stiles might be able to look back at this summer and laugh. Tell funny anecdotes. Joke about it. But that day, whatever far off day it is, isn't now. pt.1
1. I Stay Up Cashing in My Bad Luck

This one-shot is the first part in a twenty-five part story using my hurt/comfort bingo card words. This one's prompt was 'alien abduction', which, after I went scouring through , is to be interpreted like this:

-alien - n.:  
2. any being or thing foreign to the environment in which it now exists  
-abduction - n.:  
1. the act of taking someone away by force or cunning; kidnapping

So: Foreign peoples taking something in an illegal or forceful manner. Which is how I got this :} Enjoy?

Also, a warning is given out for a section of speaking from the male antagonist met in this chapter, who makes lewd and uncomfortable comments to a sleeping/unconscious Stiles. The entire section of speaking between the male aggressor and the female aggressor is in italics, so if you want to skip it you can. It's the only time we get to hear him speak and he's a bit of a creeper, so I wont be mad if you skip over it, I'm just giving you a warning. :]

* * *

_In the Book of Edicts, written in the blood of the Earth, all prophecies are transcribed, all fates recorded, all moments taken in. There is nothing that the Book will not know, will not see, will not understand._

_In the Book of Edicts, written in the blood of the Earth, reality becomes legend, legend becomes fantasy, fantasy becomes myth._

_Myth becomes fact. _

One day, maybe even some day soon (although that isn't really likely, all things considered), Stiles might be able to look back at this summer and laugh. Tell funny anecdotes. Joke about it.

But that day, whatever far off day it is, isn't now.

It's probably not even soon.

So instead, Stiles is going to suffer. Because that's what happens this summer, the last summer before college.

The last summer of normality.

**i.** **_nothing gold can stay_**

There are a lot of problems in Stiles' life that start with 'Scott McCall', 'Derek Hale', and 'the Pack', which is frankly disturbing and should probably be noted if he ever gets put in a mental institution. He wont, he knows, but it's always a sort-of possibility with the way the supernatural shenanigans crop up in their town. It makes Stiles wonder if it's some kind of Buffy phenomenon: is Beacon Hills the way it is because of crazy mythological happenings, or do crazy mythological happenings happen because it's Beacon Hills? The world may never know. Or, at least, Stiles wont.

Either way, the majority of Stiles' predicaments come about due to association - best friend is a werewolf? Totally worthy for fairy curse-work. Hang out with werewolf pack? Obviously looking to be hung upside down in the forest over a goblin fire.

Sneak around behind the backs of the local werewolf hunters while protecting town from death via ghost poisoning? Clearly looking to be snatched up and shipped off to some nut-job's basement in a box.

At least, Stiles hopes he's going to some nut-job's basement. It's really the only good version of this scenario that he can think of.

The short of it, he guesses, is that he's been abducted. Again. He hopes it's by something relatively tame, but the more he rattles around in the back of the car - apparently in a metal box, what the hell is that - the less likely it seems. Nothing else that's snatched him up had been able to drive, which makes him think that this is probably something moderately worse than normal.

The day had been going pretty okay, too, he thinks, trying to keep his head from knocking against the side of the box with any more force than is strictly necessary. With the expansion of the Pack - and the wrangling of Jackson and Lydia into the fold after the Kanima shenanigans - Derek had moved them deeper onto his family's land, away from the slow reconstruction that was the Hale house. Stiles didn't mind it too much, not that anyone asked, but seeing as he was literally the only one going into town for supplies, his vote probably should've been taken a little bit more seriously.

Whatever, he's pretty positive there's some sort of conspiracy going on against him anyway. He figured it out after the fourth time he was the only one kidnapped by angry supernatural bullies with a beef against the Pack. Which, he'd remarked to someone after they'd cut him out of a particularly tenacious net (made of vines, what the hell), was pretty damn stupid. But whatever, he thinks, it'll stop sometimes. Eventually the memo will get out that Beacon Hills Hale Pack isn't a group of newbie supernatural beings and their flimsy side-kicks, and the other baddies will leave them alone. Derek will stop grinding his teeth over territory disputes, Scott will get his head in the game, everyone else will fall in line and be good and happy and finally, finally, Stiles will be able to sit back and not have to anticipate the capture of the week.

They've been doing good too, he knows - everyone's been meshing so well it's like the bumps in the road never happened. They've got their places now, their rules and guidelines, and it doesn't look like they're going to fall apart at the seams any time soon. Erica has settled into her skin and Isaac doesn't look at them like he expects to be punched for existing, and even though Boyd really only claimed that he was tired of being friendless he seems looser too, like he doesn't have to try to be someone he isn't. It doesn't really strike anyone (except maybe Scott, but, please, it's Scott) that Allison and Lydia and Jackson just... fall into place, like if they weren't human or Kanima or whatever Lydia is they'd be werewolves, too, Pack in the most complete sense of the word.

It's perfect, and Stiles sees it for what it is, unity and family and love. He sees it, he knows it, but he can't claim to be in it. Not like the rest of them.

In the dark, rattling around in a metal box, dehydrated and hurting, it's the last thing he wants to think about.

So, of course, he thinks about it. Really, there's no end to the torture he's put through, because he's always doing it to himself.

Stiles knew from the beginning, when Scott first came back faster, stronger, asthma-less, that something big was going down and the most he could do was hang on. Then it tumbled into something bigger - of course it did. There was murder and subterfuge and lying, and half the time Stile's nightmares are of Peter gripping his arm, telling him he wants it, offering it, and all the knowledge of how much better he'd be at the whole werewolf thing floods him, curls and washes his insides with resentment. Because _of course_ Scott is the werewolf, _of course_ he gets the girl, _of course_ he's too stupid to see how ridiculously tight nit and perfect the Pack is as a family, as care and protection and belonging.

He wakes gasping, a weight and a knot in and on his chest, ashamed of himself for feeling what he does, for thinking those things, for believing them even that little bit. It makes looking at Scott that much harder, makes feeling happy for him hurt that much more. He knows, in the purely rational part of his brain - the one that always knows when to take Adderall and when not to, how much to take and when to stop, _stop, __**stop**_ - that he's just digging himself deeper. He knows too, that he's the one isolating himself from the friendships and the Pack because he never feels like he belongs. He knows, he knows, and he can't stop - doesn't stop, won't stop - because he doesn't think he'd be able to take it if, when, it gets ripped away.

Stiles knows the way the world works, has seen those bad things that happen to good people, has seen the way loved ones waste away when the one they need is gone. He hates it, hates all of it, but he vowed early on (back when it was just Isaac who'd been turned, but he knew Derek wasn't going to stop, that Derek was going to fix himself a family even if it meant picking up a group of misfits and teaching them about the things that go bump in the night) - he vowed early on that he wouldn't allow that to happen to him.

He wouldn't become his father (stuck stranded and alone on an island of depression with a teenage son to take care of because there was a gaping hole in his life where his wife used to be, where things like repression and guilt and survivors trauma and cancer turned him into a mess of pain and alcohol).

So yeah, he got to watch the Pack pick itself up and bond and be cute and fuzzy and still moderately terrifying. He got to watch and play book-keeper and make sure that they still paid attention to their human sides, like going to school and getting good grades and eating things that weren't alive half an hour ago. He listens to the Pack meetings over the phone or over Skype, because he can't be there, and he listens to Erica toss around jokes like 'pack mama' and 'mama bear' and he gets to watch Isaac and Boyd and Jackson just humor her and roll their eyes and laugh. He puts the wall up because he needs to know that he can be independent and individual without them, even though his entire being aches with wanting to join in.

(And the flower of pain in his chest never goes away, but he doesn't cry about it anymore and he won't cry about it ever again because, for once, his life is exactly the way it is because of something he did, choices he made. If the Pack gets farther away and he's left to doing house cleaning and cooking and running to the store for them because the only time they're in the cabin is at night, and sometimes not even then, he's fine with it. It's cool - perfect, better than perfect.

It's his life. It has to be.)

He thinks about this while rattling around in a metal box in a car going somewhere, wrists and ankles tied up and half asleep due to the tightness of the rope and the small proportions of the box, the gag in his mouth zapping what little moisture he can muster up, stale and gross tasting. The entire abduction thing had been a blur, and for the first few moments after it he hadn't been able to figure it out, but - some indeterminable amount of time later, and Stiles hoped it wasn't hours, God did he hope it wasn't hours - it had eventually fallen into place for him.

And his day had been going so well, too, he thinks, resting his head on the bottom of the box. Really. Good.

He'd been running to the store, intent on cooking the next weeks dinners and freezing them because he'd be touring colleges while the Pack was romping in the woods and his dad was at some retreat - two months of the beach, lucky dog - and Stiles was left alone in the house. He'd taken up almost permanent residence at the library, too lonely to stay at his home but too proud and hurting to invade the cabin. He'd been in the parking lot of the grocers, carefully loading eggs onto the backseat of the Jeep so that they wouldn't take a leap of faith if he took the corners a little to sharply.

His head and shoulders had been inside the car, moving bread around to form a protective barrier around the eggs, when he'd been jerked violently by the scruff of his shirt and pulled from the car. The momentum had sent him back against the car in the parking space next to him, his head snapping back to bang against the window. His attacker - a guy, taller than him and blondish, from what he'd seen from his peripheral vision - was to his left, big hands like vices grabbing his shoulder and his neck and sending him forward, smashing the front of his head against the cabs diving bar. Dazed and stumbly, he'd barely had time to register the man dragging him, back, the trunk of the car he'd been bashed into popping open.

There's a sharp pain that spikes through the back of his head, like an ice-pick being driven up into his skull, and then he's being manhandled into a tight, stale tasting gag by one person while another set of hands bound his wrists together with duct tape, palm to palm. He can feel the catch of the tape on his jeans, the twist of his shoes as they take them off and bind his ankles together. Hands pat him down quickly, searching for his phone and not finding it, and he has a hazy moment to appreciate the fact that after being taken for the second time they'd started taping the phone's tracking device to the inside of his bicep. Then, wrapped like a particularly awkward sausage link, they spin him around and shove him into a particularly cramped box, the top of it closing a hairs-breadth from his head when they snap the lid down.

Which was where he was when just then, too. Locked in a metal box in a car that couldn't possibly look menacing. He thought it was a blue van. Like a soccer mom van. And yeah, soccer moms could be psycho-crazy and carry around clubs with nails in them in the backs of their vans incase they need to beat the competition to death, but seriously. Who checks a minivan for boxes with bodies in them?

No body, that's who, and it doesn't help him at all.

At some point he falls asleep, curled uncomfortably on his side, fingers against his forehead, mouth dry and stomach twisting in want. There are vague flashes of coherence, where he might be awake or he might not, but at some point the car stops moving, the box shifts, and the noise is gone.

He sleeps through it, mostly, body tense from the cramped space, mouth and throat dry. He thinks he can hear them speaking, at one point, through the drilled holes at the bottom of the box, but nothing makes sense.

_"John, no. We aren't allowed to touch the merchandise."_  
_"Please, Joanne, you can't tell me that little twink isn't totally worth it. Did you see his mouth?"  
"No. The last time you played 'toe the line' with the delivery we got sent to the boonies. I don't care how much you want to bad touch the kid. Go be a rapist creep after we've dropped him off."_

_"- bet your such a whore for it, bet you like it rough, bet you haven't even had it that good yet..."_  
_"I just want to fuck your mouth, boy, want to watch your lips stretch over my cock."  
"Want to make you scream for me."_

As far as he's aware, they don't give him water, but he hasn't died from dehydration after the fourth - fifth? - time he's slipped into unconsciousness, so they're probably giving him something. He doesn't know how long he's trapped in the box, his circadian rhythms twisted beyond recognition without the tell of daylight, and if he wasn't claustrophobic before hand he's seriously contemplating it now. His back aches, his legs are stiff and his arms are cramping. He hasn't felt anything worse than that, though, so he assumes, rattling around in the box, that his captors take him out and stretch him while he's asleep.

He's seriously hoping that whatever is going down, he's not getting felt up while he's asleep. He's got a somnophilia squick, he knows, and he hates the idea of being violated without being aware of it.

Either way, after Stiles's has totally lost his natural sleeping patters, probably been out of the state for at least three days (he's seriously hoping that they aren't out of the country, because holy shit that is not good on so many levels), and is nearly dying of something that is probably jaundice (can you die from that, he wonders, fingers against his nose), it stops.

Everything just... ceases. Stills. Halts. There's movement, and then there isn't, and it's so startling and unusual that he doesn't even notice for several minutes after it happens.

And then, _holy fucking shit_ the car isn't moving anymore. If he strains his ears hard enough he can hear the driver's side door banging open, the crunch of feet on dirt - gravel? - a second set of foot steps from the passenger side. The trunk pops open with an easy snap, and then the box is being lifted, swayed, and he can't tell where the ground is supposed to be but there's a strangled grunting coming from somewhere close by, and a steady swinging motion.

They're carrying him. The box is being removed from the car and they're _carrying him away_.

Stiles seriously hopes that whatever is at the other end of his journey doesn't eat him, or hurt him, or anything too bad, because it's finally starting to hit him. He's been _abducted _by people, or beings, who can _drive_. He has no idea how long he's been gone from Beacon Hills, no idea how long he's been gone _period_, and no one knows that he's missing. His dads out at a seminar (two months at a beach, and he's choking on his own bile he's going to be sick he's going to be sick oh God), and the Pack was in the forest, doing werewolf things.

He closes his eyes and presses his hands against his face, trying to breathe evenly. A little ripple of hysterical laughter fights to get out of him, but he smashes it down. For all intents and purposes, it looks like he could be praying.

He hopes the dehydration or the lack of food claims him before he has a chance to do it seriously.

* * *

So yes. This is my first foray into the Teen Wolf fandom, fanfic wise, and I hope it's good and that people like it! I know the tenses are a little weird in some areas, so I hope you'll forgive me for all mistakes because they are mine and not my beta (as I don't have one and using myself as a beta is rather bad). Reviews, kudos, and constructive criticism are all welcome, and I hope you'll stick around for the next installment.


	2. This is how an angel dies

loss - n.:  
4. the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had: the loss of old /

possession - n.:  
2. anything that is owned or possessed

Here we go!

* * *

Maybe the worst part about Stiles' ADD is that without it, without the Adderall, he'd have an eidetic memory - perfect pathways to mental file-boxes full of information on everything he's read. Pictures, videos, articles, book pages, everything as neat and organized as a CIA database.

Instead, he's got meandering walks through interconnected clumps of knowledge like a tangle of yarn. It's not that he doesn't have the know-how - it's there, definitely, he can give the entire history of male circumcision for Chrissakes - it's just... everywhere.

(It's the part of his mind that monitors his Adderall that is neat, tidy, so organized it's obsessive. It's this part of his brain that will never, _ever_ forget.)

Maybe the best part about Stiles' ADD is that without it, everything would be a whole lot worse.

**ii. ****_so Eden sank to grief_**

The walk from the car can't be more than a few minutes long - maybe five, maybe eight - but to Stiles it feels like forever, the back and forth motion of the box while his captors walk, the unshifting light, the only sounds being the crunching of gravel beneath feet and the grunts of exertion from both the man and the woman.

He can tell when they move from being outside to inside because the foot steps change, and there's more of them. The gravel sound gives way to the scuff of shoe-souls against tile, and the two foot steps multiplying into many. He can't keep track of them all.

While the foot noise increases to a low wash of thunder against his ears, the swaying and the stress-noise continue - no one speaks, and time feels liquid and crawling against his skin. He wants to scream, to shout, to cry, but the need to know and catalog everything (_every sound, every movement, _everything) keeps him stilled. Quiet. Waiting.

The stop is abrupt - one moment movement, the next the a sliding hiss and a catch, the metal box no longer swaying. He isn't on the ground, there was no disturbance or rotational swinging to make it even feel like they lowered him to the floor, and he doesn't have any more time to think about it because the top of the box is opening and a big hand is grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him out and dropping him none to gently onto the floor. His head spins and his eyes fight to adjust to the light (because holy fuck is there _light_, everything is blinding and white and _hurting_), and he can vaguely register people walking away, footsteps receding, and a door closing.

But he isn't alone.

In the several heartbeats it takes for his his mind to snap back into focus like a shifting camera lens, he picks up the sound of pens _skritch-scratching_ on paper, fabric moving against fabric, tapping. When his vision finally clears he wants to laugh and cry all at once.

It's so much worse and so much more surreal than he thought it was going to be.

He's lying on the floor in a room that looks like something out of a hospital, white on white and sterilized. The floor tiles are cold against the back of his head, also white and unnaturally clean. Around him are men and women in - of all things - lab coats and scrubs. They're clad in blue and white with pens in their pockets like it's some kind of fad. The surreal creepiness only racks up higher because their faces are covered by thick reflective glasses and breathing masks (and the cold grip of _oh shit oh my god oh somebody please save me_ just tightens around his spine, makes his lungs ache and his mind blank out because _this is it_. This is all those stories he's heard about and seen on the news about girls getting trapped in the cellars of insane people for years, of boys being stolen from their homes and kept in bunkers in the forest. This is it. Not with a whimper or a bang but a carton of eggs in the backseat, there and then _gone_).

He's taken psychology, he knows what this is - Dr. Zimbardo's school jail and roles versus mentality had taken up two weeks of class time and worksheets. These are the guards (sun glasses, uniforms, unity, _we the law_), he thinks, trying to curl in on himself. These are the guards and jailers and the dictators, oh my, and for once Stiles doesn't think that he can get out of this. He knows, in his very bones, that he can't.

They don't move as one, but they do move. Half of the group tucks their clip-boards under their arms and waits, while the other half moves forward and picks him up off the floor - three people to carry, three to watch, he thinks as they move him to a different side of the room. He's put on a table and bands are pulled across his shoulders and his waist. They cut the duct tape from around his wrists and ankles, and then his legs and arms are restrained too.

His voice is working now, at least.

"Hey, hey, you really don't want to do this." They tighten the straps on his arms. "No I'm serious, my dad's the sheriff, he probably already has the force looking for me and this is like, the _worst_ idea you guys have ever had." The fear is so thick in his mouth that he can't tell if he's saying anything coherent, just that his voice is there in the silence. "I mean, you've obviously got a serious operation going on and that's rad, really, but I'm like important and shit and - _oh my god what is that_." Out of the corner of his eye he can see it - one of the doctors, they have to be doctors, tapping a syringe full of a clear liquid, releasing the air. The faceless person moves forward, and even though he's strapped down, like, really thoroughly, he still struggles, arches up and wiggles in the opposite direction and jerks his arm. The only thing it does is prompt the other faceless doctor people into holding him down manually, hands on his shoulders, below his knees, his arms.

"No, no, no this is - no what, no, please, _please_." His voice is high and aching, pulling out of him like hooks, but the doctor doesn't stop, just steps forward and slides the needle into his arm. He doesn't even realize he's begging. One of the doctors covers his mouth with their hand (the doctor is a man with broad hands).

There's several heart beats that pass, full of sterile silence and keening noises that crawl from Stiles' throat. He counts one breath, three, before his body feels like it's too light to stay on the table, before his joints feel thick and fuzzy. The hand moves away and his head lolls to the side, tongue thick in his mouth, vision swimming slightly but still focused. Cotton fills his ears and the sounds - what little there were - grew muffled and far away.

That, of course, is when they started speaking.

Voices, cold, clinical, bland even - passing information to each other while quick fingers unbound his arms and legs.

_"Beacon Hills, California,"_ they said, _"running with werewolves."_  
_"Totally human. Eighteen, afflicted with ADD and moderate insomnia."_

They manhandle him off the table and out the door, his body slung over one of the group's shoulders like a sack of potatoes. There are twists and turns - maybe a hundred, maybe two - and then he's being lowered onto another table, this one padded lightly and without restraints.

_"Bonded?"  
"Not as far as we can tell."  
"Affinity level?"  
"High. Warranting Code Red SV under duress, Code Orange SI normally. Erratic though - untapped or uncontrolled or both. No sings of regular use."_

The artificial lighting over head makes his head hurt - his can feel the muscles in his eyes pulling and contracting to balance out the sensory input, his head pounding in time with his heart. His mind slips in and out of focus quickly, but the sensations and movements are not lost to him - he can feel each shift acutely, like neon lights burning in his mind, his awareness shifting to each new thing as quickly as it comes.

He can feel it as each layer of clothing is pealed away, the tug of his socks on his feet and the catch of his jacket on his arms. From the corner of his eye he can see them folded neatly on a nearby table, each item it's own pile. Panic spikes through him when he feels his jeans unbuttoned, the zipper sliding down smoothly, a single stroke of separating teeth. He can feel the sweat beading on his brow as his pants are tugged down, the denim catching on the lines of his hips and the curves of his knees, then again on his ankles when the waist band passes over his feet. It's clinical, calculated, quick - latex drags over skin, removing fabric, stripping him away. He can see the hands move forward, fingers looping under the elastic of his underwear, sliding them off in one smooth motion.

The table is cold and soft and far away, but it doesn't matter, because Stiles is naked and disconnected and terrified. His tongue works against his teeth, too thick and dry, set wrong in his mouth, eyes wide as nondescript hands run over his body, checking, poking prodding. He can tell when they find the phone tracker, a distant tug alerting him to the separation of tape from skin.

It hits him like a kick to the chest - he's lost to the world, gone, everything he came with pulled off and taken away. He has nothing left, and only the slimmest of hopes that maybe, maybe, someone knows he's gone.

For all intents and purposes, Stiles Stilinski has vanished from the face of the earth - and the only people who care to look have spent the last two weeks running through the woods, spending barely more than a couple hours at the house, total.

He's screwed.

The clean slide of the plastic gloves on his skin brings him back, to the sterile glare of the walls and the sharp-quick fingers of the faceless doctors that surround him. There are so many hands, so many people, voices smoothing and humming over his ears, across his eyes, like living things. Stiles feels his skin twitch in an aborted shiver, and tastes fear.

_"We have a room?"  
"At the end of Hall C. Room sixteen vacated last week."  
"We'll put him there until - if - the procedure takes."  
"It's been scheduled?"  
"For the next month, at least."_

His vision swings, upward, right side vertical, and hard hands swing his arms over stiff shoulders, his toes dragging on the ground when they begin to move him away from the slab. His cheek rolls against his shoulder and then back, a slash of color catching his eye as the staff move him again.

Fire.

A metal slide in the wall, lifted up and away, the living hands of fire curling behind it. Reaching, grasping, he watches them consume first the needle - slide down, _snap pop_, gone - and then a lump of fabric.

His shirt.

First one, then the other - black cotton-poly blend and then plaid, turned to crisping ashes and smoke in a matter of seconds (how hot and thrilling that fire must be, how terrifying, how _alive_ - Stiles would give his left arm to know how it feels against his skin, because _anything_ is better than the nameless fate that awaits him).

Then his pants, double folded, right in, a his and snap against the metal and - gone. His socks are barely even a blink, a sigh, and then the cover slips back down, and the fire is gone.

Stiles is gone.

The path they take him down is full of a hundred twists and turns, and this time it probably is, even though his mind still feels like it's full of cotton and paper, his joints nitrogen against the liquid glass of his bones. He doesn't feel the need to fight anymore, not with hopelessness so prevalent in everything that's happened - abduction, being injected with something like anesthesia but not, loosing his cloths. He's being dragged naked down a hall, arms slung over two people who probably plan on killing him. This is so much more and so much less than Gerard, than anything he's ever faced - there had always been a chance, a silver lining, a last ditch idea to save the day.

Now he can barely think, can only breath as they open a door and pull him through, closing it with an echoing _snick_ behind him. It feels like anticipation, like thick smoke, like looking at the edge of the cliff and knowing it's the only escape.

Stiles will wait for the other shoe to drop, because then - _then_ he will know that he's done. He's always been stubborn.

His head is at the perfect angle to watch them clasp shining manacles around his wrists without even a snap, before they shove his head forward so he can feel his chin against his chest. From there he gets to watch his ankles get locked in, gets to see his toes lift off the ground as the chain supporting his wrists is tightened until he's strung, bow string taught, between the ceiling and the floor. A spasm wracks his shoulders, thick and painful against the fog in his mind, the muscles protesting loudly all along his back, across his hips and down. Tears rise in his eyes, but he snaps his eyes shut and wills them away, breathing tight through his nose.

The water that hits him in the back feels like a thousand fishhooks raking across his skin - a scream tears it's way out of his throat, long and high and sharp, and he holds it until his throat feels raw and open from the sound. The pressure doesn't abate.

With slow determination the spray rotates around him, blasting his skin with water so cold it burns, moving steadily up and down and back up, leaving blue tinged swaths of flesh in its wake. It beats across his scalp and over his face, eyes pressed so tightly shut that spots dance and spin the blackness.

The temperature change is abrupt and scalding, from a cold-burn to a bleeding scald, and he screams again and again and again, until the only noise he can make is broken whimpering and guttural keening sounds. The heat is balm and sickness all in one, returning warmth to him and bringing him higher, farther from his pain threshold than the ice water.

It goes on forever, for thousands of years, until his heartbeat is the only noise from himself that he can hear, until the water feels a constant against his skin.

And then it's gone.

His muscles spasm and tighten at the shock, his mind, only moderately clearer, reeling from the absence. He barely has time to notice that there are deft hands removing the metal bands from his wrists and ankles before he is being moved, eyes rolling wildly in their sockets, trying to focus. The clarity of his mind is coming back, quicker now, and even though several sets of turns have been lost to him he can feel it - the need to know, to have direction, just in case. If there's a chance of - ... just in case.

Sitting down in an actual chair after so much manual movement is a welcome respite and a slap to his consciousness, and for the several heartbeats he has to himself Stiles can't help but think, '_this is probably the lamest little mercy ever to be appreciated. What would anyone say._' Then his head is being jerked around, and he can focus on the mirror in front of him - when did the mirror get there? - on the man behind him, clad like all the rest, brandishing an electric shaver, already alive and buzzing.

He jerks his head around, trying to fight the inevitable, but the man just grabs one side of his head and brings the blades to the other, and with a quick sliding motion Stiles' hair is being shorn clean off. He'd never gotten it very long (it was impractical, what with the running through the forests and the kidnapping and the fighting. Everyone Packside kept their hair short now, and even Erica, Lydia and Allison had taken to wearing their hair up and out of the way almost constantly. Even if he couldn't shift, Stiles had followed the werewolf trend and kept it just short of two inches), but watching it fall in thin drifts against his shoulders was like watching his clothing being burnt.

Another piece of Stiles Stilinski, just Stiles, gone.

When there's only a very fine peach fuzz left, the man stops, electric razor clicking into silence. A hairdryer is brandished at him, almost on full, and he twitches against the burn of hot air over his sensitive skin, even as his hair falls away from him and onto the floor. Lost, gone.

He watches as smooth feeling, scentless liquid is poured onto his head, stinging slightly against his freshly exposed scalp. The ooze is spread, down his neck and shoulders, under his jaw, across his cheek bones. More is applied, dripped and rubbed down his back and arms, over his stomach, along his ass and thighs - clinical, cold, and for a moment he imagines that this is almost as bad as rape, and then hates himself for it as gloved hands move over his legs and feet, squishing the liquid between his toes, around each of his fingers.

Scentless - another inch, vanished.

They tug him away from the chair, toward a different part of the room he hadn't been able to see from the mirror's reflection - cabinets, a handful of them, the same white with light blue accenting as the doctors, as the halls, as the rest of the rooms he's cared to notice. One doctor holds him, grip firm and plastic against his skin, while another opens the doors, revealing dozens and dozens of pairs of grey shirts, pants, underwear.

Bland, colorless, lifeless - more and more, gone gone gone.

The tall doctor who'd been rooting through the clothing jerks a shirt over his head, around his ears, forcing his arms through the arm holes. Stiles' head is screwed on right enough again to glare murderously at him, to wince when the pain happens, rather than belatedly, but his tongue still feels heavy and brick-like in his mouth. He rolls it against his teeth, waiting for the time when he can snap and snarl and tell them off.

The underwear and pants are slid on with an equal amount of distaste, and he realizes there's no draw string, no buttons, no clasps on anything. Nothing to use as means of escape, or a weapon, or a last resort. Nothing - handicapped and tool-less, left in grey.

They steer him out of the shaving room and down several more halls, his eyes darting up to see the bold navy of blocky letters at the corners. A, an empty hall lined with doors and sourceless lighting; B, a hall full of doors and empty lighting, an orderly at the end, exiting a room; C, perpetually bright and remote, cold, still, they turn down this hall, several dozen steps, to C16, and the doctor to his right swings the door open with the slide of a key-card and a thumb print.

A show of power, of futility in escape, of cunning and planning and security.

He's shoved in roughly, but not violently, and doesn't have a chance to stumble or even turn before the door is closing, locking with an oppressive beeping. One, two, three - silence.

The room is off white, windowless, full of the same baseless light as the halls - there's a sliding slot on his door at eye level, and larger door at the bottom, hopefully for food. A slab juts from the wall at roughly knee height, padded with a thin pallet and an only slightly thicker pillow. A blanket rests on the foot of his new bed, a button push toilet in the opposite corner.

Tired, hurting, gripped by fear so great he's gone numb, dead, cold with it, Stiles sits on the bed and curls in upon himself, knees drawn up tight against his chest. It's then that he sees it.

The number.

Dark grey against the light grey of his shirt sleeve, _C0016-SVSIT_ stands stark and ugly in the permanent light.

Now, even his name is gone.

Stiles - C0016-SVSIT - presses his forehead against his knees and doesn't cry.

He won't give them that.

* * *

I just wanted to let you guys know that there are a couple endgames I have in mind for this series, and they all work together, so let me tell you:  
1. Sterek is endgame of all endgames. I. Will. Get there!  
2. I know exactly how Stiles is going to end up - I know what happens in 'this place', I know who he meets and doesn't meet, etc.  
3. There are some very specific stepping stones I have to get to before other things can happen. Some of them aren't too big, or to obvious for anyone not me, but I'll point them out when we get there (for those of you who want to know, our first Stepping Stone has been reached. Figure out what it is?)

The first installment got a lot of hits and for that I'm really thankful. You guys are awesome, even if you don't leave kudos or comments or anything. So thanks, and I hope you stick it out with me :]

If you have questions, feel free to ask, I'll answer them as best I can without giving too much away :D


	3. Hiatus

So my computer broke yesterday - as in, there's some sort of hardware problem that has to be sorted out and we don't know what it is. Until such time as it can be fixed, I'll be writing from my school's computers and my public library's computers. Unfortunately, I don't know when it will be fixed, only that we are working on it :/

Anyway: I'll try to get on the four days a week I have TA class, and then see if I can't make my way over to the library for the rest of it. But my hours are going to be severly limited, unless I can get on my mom's computer at home. Unfortunately, all the writing I have for the next installment of _Some Nights_ is on my broken computer, so I'll be navigating the dark recesses of my memory with the scrap for the beginning of the installment I was smart enough to send to myself via email about a week ago. Hopefully I'll have my computer fixed soon so that I can maintain quality and consistancy for you :]

If you're reading this, thanks so much for understanding, and know that I am very genuinely distressed about what's happened, as I was actively working on the next piece and it seriously kills me a little inside that I can't work on it as I would like to, as the copy in my email is significantly diminished from the part I have on my out-of-commission desktop.

As it were, Real Life has quite the tendency to screw over basically all the things I like to write, so here we are, waiting.

Patience is a virtue, and I love all of you exceptionally 3  
Let's hope it gets fixed soon.

[This message will be reposted on tumblr, fanfiction, and Dream Width when the sites are available for me to access through a less restricted computer.]

[This has been reposted on Dream Width, and AO3]


	4. UnHiatus!

So my computer and all my files are back (yay!), and this means that I can finally get back to working on part three of this project of mine. In my internet down time I've scribbled out some things longhand (gracious, what even is that), and I will be tackling this both at home and at school!

This is just a heads up for those of you that have been waiting so so soooo patiently for this to be updated: fear not, it's back in my clutches and being worked on!

These two authors note chapters will be deleted when the new, actual piece is posted.

[Posted here, on tumblr, AO3, and dreamwidth]


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